Psion's Epic Part 1
by TJ Velux
Summary: A party of dissagreable adventrurers encounters a hobgoblin... alone. Mayem ensues... in the negative aspect.


Psion's Epic Part 1 By TJ Velux 

_Feet pounding the cold cobblestone road, Garet flees from the guards for his life. "Stop," one shouts, "under penalty of death!" Heh, he thinks to himself, fat chance. As he rounds the next corner, he notices the air start to warm a bit. Must be near the forge. He glances up and notices the forge is on the other side of town from here... "Morlei kinra suntave!" In a flash of light, Garet is thrown into the wall by a massive fireball. "Oh, no..." he whispers. "Not a pyromancer..." He raises his arms and begins to manifest a power when suddenly the flames erupt once more..._  
"Garet!" He doesn't even need to open his eyes.  
"What do you want, Eisa?"  
"You were having that nightmare again... you should really let Traku look at you. I'm worried about you. Both of us are." Her slight body leaned up against the side table, barely clearing its height.  
Garet internally shuddered at the thought of having to see the cleric again. "I've told you a hundred times, Eisa, clerics can't..."  
"...deal with problems of the mind. I know, Garret. You could at least show some gratitude! He's saved your life, what, twenty-five... no, twenty-_six_ times!"  
He silently wished the rogue hadn't really started a tally of how many life debts he owed Traku.  
"Fine, fine..." Garet sighed. "I'll go see the damned human..."  
"You really should watch your language, young Elan-folk mustn't talk that way." Traku strode in, his eyes burning with spiritual power. Garet groaned at the sight of the muscular human. "I hope to Pelor that mouth of yours doesn't get you killed these days. So, Garet. Why do you refuse the will of the gods? You know that your race was blessed at the dawn of time and you grew these abilities that…"  
Garet cut him off. "Don't try to shove your religious crap down my throat. What you can feel, touch... that's real. But _gods?_ No, Traku, gods cannot be touched, nor heard or seen. What makes you think that they are..."  
Garet stared at the space where the man had been a second before. "Damn it..." Garret rolled his eyes. Eisa giggled. "What's so funny?" He snapped. "After all his talk about manners, you'd think that he wouldn't break off a conversation like that."  
Something pulled him out of bed. "What in the hells..?" He was dangling by one foot now. Eisa was laughing uproariously. A loud guffaw erupted from outside the tent, and he dropped to the floor. Traku walked in, saying, "You really, _really_ should watch that mouth of yours." He grinned. Eisa collected herself, then fell out laughing again.  
A small noise came from outside the tent, just loud enough for Garet to hear it. He shushed the halfling, then crept to the door. He heard the sound again, more distinctly this time. "Get down!" he roared, as a crossbow bolt whizzed through the air where his head was half a second ago.  
Garet threw himself into a mental stance, searching for hostile intelligent beings nearby. He zoned in on the hobgoblin outside the tent. The Elan threw a quick telekinetic net around the creature before it could reload its light crossbow.  
"Grahgin surna!" it screeched as the party left the tent. "Mari kihnak!"  
"I do believe he's insulting us." Traku said.  
"Don't worry. I've got it covered..." _you stupid cleric_, Garet added in thought. He pulled his psicrystal out from a hidden fold in his tunic. _Alright, do your thing._ The crystal extended its spidery legs and climbed up the invisible ropes of the psionic net. As it neared the base of the hobgoblin's neck, it gave a mighty shriek. "Kand'su... ganyi... _ARANUWAKI!_" Suddenly, the plain was filled with utter darkness. Light returned. The creature was gone, with the crystal sitting calmly on the ground.  
_What happened?_ Garet asked his psicrystal. It sent confusion along the empathic connection between master and crystal. _You know what I'm talking about._ It threw panic at him. _Alright, so you don't know... calm down already._  
"He's... gone." Eisa said plainly. She glanced at the human. "Can hobgoblins do that? I mean, planeshifting?"  
"I didn't even know hobgoblins were ever seen solitarily," said Traku, "but that obviously was wrong. Have you heard of this, Garet? Garet?"  
"Garet... What's going on?" Eisa asked timidly.  
"Hush, halfling, let us find out," Traku quipped.  
He looked up from the crystal. Acting swiftly, he placed the psicrystal on the ground and drew a circle on the ground around it. With a blink of his eye, a trasluscent dome formed over the circle. "I wouldn't want to be there in case the dome shatters if I were you," he warned.  
"What? You mean... it's going to…"  
"Yes."  
Eisa and Traku dove for cover in the boulder-infested plain.

_Author's note: When a psicrystal is destroyed, the psion goes through a sort of withdrawal as his knowledge is suddenly contained in one mind instead of two. The rush causes a psion's mental state to drop well below critical for a normal creature, but this is normal and takes a few months to recover. It cannot be aided, except by direct dietific intervention._

Four Months Later 

Traku sighed and replaced the bandages for the fourth time that day. He wished that the wounds would stop being so stubborn... _and just heal, by the gods!_ he thought in exasperation. He felt as if it would never end... however, if he just kept up hope...  
"Huhhn?" the figure in the bed moaned.  
"Garet!" the cleric shouted in glee. "Eisa! come quickly! Garet's awake!"  
"'Bout time," she yawned and strode in, "I must've been up for that last two weeks making sure no one filched his things..."  
Garet sat up. "How... how long was I out?"  
"Four months," she replied, stretching out on the rug. "And that makes twenty-seven."  
"Really? But..." The Elan stopped as he realized that neither Traku or Eisa were no longer there. "Eisa? Traku?" He looked around a bit before seeing where they had gone.  
Both were sound asleep on the floor.


End file.
